1 What burden for Damascus? Damascus, too, shall cease to be a city, shall become a heap of stones in ruin: 2 the cities of Aroer will lie, now, abandoned to flocks, that take their ease undisturbed. 3 Ephraim protected no more, Damascus a kingdom no more, what is left of Syria will enjoy no more renown than Israel itself; such is her doom from the Lord of hosts.

4 The renown of Jacob, little enough will it be when that day comes; nothing but skin and bone will be left. 5 Scanty as the corn a man gathers in his arm when he picks up what is left after the harvest, some gleaner in the valley of Rephaim. 6 Only a cluster left here and there, a few olives still to be shaken off, two or three at the end of a branch, four or five on the top branch of all; that is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has decreed. 7 Then at last man will turn to his Maker, will look towards the Holy One of Israel. 8 He will turn no longer towards altars of his own designing, have eyes no longer for pillar and shrine of his own fashioning. 9 The cities he had fortified will be abandoned then, as ploughs and crops[1] were abandoned when Israel itself was the invader, and thou shalt be left forlorn. 10 Thou didst forget the God who delivered thee, and gavest no thought to thy strong protector; thou art like one who plants on soil of good promise, but all the while is putting in bastard shoots. 11 Wild grapes they were from the day when thou didst plant them, and soon this planting of thine will begin to bud; and now, when the time comes to enjoy it, here is all thy harvest lost to thee, and bitterly thou dost repine.[2]

12 Doom goes with it, this swollen multitude of nations, like the swollen seas that go roaring past; like the roar of those swollen seas is the stir of such a throng. 13 Nations roaring with the roar of waters in full flood; and then, God will rebuke him, and in a moment he is far away, swept like the dust when a wind blows on the hills, or the whirl of leaves before the storm. 14 Night comes, and there is terror all around; day breaks, and it is seen no more. Such the invader’s doom, so evermore shall they thrive, that come to despoil us.[3]

[1] The meaning of the words in the Hebrew text is uncertain, and many modern scholars follow the Septuagint Greek, which has ‘the Amorrhites and the Hevites’—that is, the old inhabitants of Chanaan.

[2] vv. 10, 11. The text here is difficult, and variously explained; but all are agreed on the general meaning, which is, that the Ten Tribes, in adopting the worship of false gods, were like men who are deceived, until it is too late, about the quality of the plants they put into the ground.

[3] vv. 12-14. These verses are generally interpreted as a doom pronounced against the Assyrians, as if the subject were abruptly changed. But it is possible that it is Israel who will be ‘rebuked’ in verse 13, and will disappear in verse 14, with the Assyrians as the cause of his downfall.